From bestselling and award-winning author Hilary Davidson, a propulsive, twisty thriller about the devastating consequences of the lies we tell to protect others–and ourselves.
EVERY LIE I TOLD
by Hilary Davidson
Blackstone, June 2026
(via Aaron Priest Literary)
How far would you go to protect a killer?
Jackie Swift does whatever it takes to succeed. At work, she spins lies to protect questionable clients at a shady public-relations firm. At home, she helps her younger sister, Madi, evade consequences for dangerous choices she’s made about friends and drugs. But Jackie’s professional and personal worlds collide one night when she gets a call from Madi telling her she overdosed. Rushing to the rescue, Jackie stumbles on an awful scene at an Upper East Side mansion. Madi is nowhere to be found, but she’s left behind a dead body.
Worse for Jackie, she knows the dead man all too well: it’s her former boss and mentor, and she’s been paid to cover up his crimes in the past.
Jackie is willing to do anything to protect her missing sister, even as the NYPD builds a case against Madi, who may be involved in the deaths of other sexually abusive men. As Jackie searches for her sister–and sets up plausible suspects to take Madi’s place in the eyes of the police–she’s haunted by the terrible things she’s done in service of her career. And she soon discovers there are people who’ve been waiting in the shadows for a chance to take her down.
Hilary Davidson is the bestselling author of seven crime novels, including The Damage Done and Her Last Breath. Her fiction has won two Anthony Awards, a Derringer Award, and a host of other accolades. She is also the author of more than fifty short stories, two crime-fiction collections, and a novella. In her prior life as a travel journalist, Hilary authored eighteen nonfiction books. Originally from Toronto, she has called New York City home since 2001. Visit her online at www.hilarydavidson.com.
In the glow of their children’s exciting first year of college at a small private school in Northern California, five families plan on a night of dinner and cocktails for the opening festivities of Parents Weekend. As the parents stay out way past their bedtimes, their kids―five residents of Campisi Hall―never show up at dinner.
For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken. With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He’s put his past behind him. Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali’s car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me… Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night. As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.